


Reunion

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, mention of conversion therapy, mention of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26285056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: At a reunion, Charles' family suggests that Klinger isn't the proper match for their heir.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> \- for Hallie, who wrote to me about the possibilities of Winchester evil ;) -

They had an arrangement for these wretched once a year events: Klinger attended, worn as close to him as a flower in his buttonhole, and when it was done, Charles forgot that he was a gentleman and thanked him in enthusiastic, unselfish, and (surprisingly) acrobatic ways that reinforced the message: I am forever yours, my darling. Thinking about the second part was what got both men through the first. 

The family had its own coping mechanisms; they pretended Max was a woman (he dressed the part); a teaspoon of (fictitious) sugar that allowed them to swallow the whole arragement more easily. Today, however, something was off. Maxwell had vanished and Charles’ inquiries were met with bland confusion or the suggestion that he was overreacting to his absence. Perhaps he was. Maxwell adored his parents’ hideous cat; he might be shadowing it, trying to win its love. 

When another fifteen minutes had passed, Charles went to look and found the love of his life on the edge of his boyhood bed, eyes unfocused and lost. 

“Maxwell? Darling, are you ill?” 

“Just waking up is all, Major,” he murmured.

Charles sat beside him. “Max?” 

“I thought about it before… but I guess I wasn’t smart enough to really get it.”

“Darling, what are you talking about?” 

Max took his hands, squeezed them as if they were about to part for good and always. “You lowered yourself to be with me. If I get outta the way, you can,” he swallowed back something suspiciously like a sob, “you can get back up. Where you’re ‘sposed to be. I… I won’t be in the way. You can see me sometimes if you still want. I can get a place somewhere close.” 

“Maxwell, I am about to venture a medical possibility that I very much hope to hear you affirm. Have you, in the last hour, suffered a blow to the head?” 

“No, Major.”

Charles ground his teeth. His title was being used, whether Klinger knew it or not, as a distancing mechanism. “Then I must surmise that you have been listening to some very bad advice.” Even the words were wrong. Klinger would never suggest that he had “lowered” him on his own. 

“It wasn’t bad.” Klinger did sob, then, tears glittering on the long lashes that Charles loved to watch flutter closed when the sensations he created in the man were too much for him to keep his eyes open. “I mean, it hurt, but it sounded  _ true _ . A wife… a wife can go to events with you. Help you make connections. Give you kids. I can’t… I can barely be seen in public with you. I.. you shoulda left me back in Korea, Major. I’m no use. I’m no good to you here.” 

Charles had a vocabulary that rivaled that of any linguistics professor on the East Coast, but disbelief robbed him of the eloquence he had always prided himself on possessing. Eschewing speech, he kissed a bright mark into Maxwell’s jaw. He angled the younger man’s head, gesture as brutal as those awful words that his awful family had put into his head, and kissed his lips bruised. He could have gone further - wanted to, in fact - but Max looked more than half-frightened… and very, very lost. 

“Maxwell, listen to me very carefully. Not only do you inspire me to be a better surgeon and a better man, you are the reason I turned my back on despair. It is not poetry or exaggeration to say that I would die without you. Furthermore, the people telling you these terrible lies about where you fit in my life are the selfsame people who once had me tortured  _ as a boy _ for deviance. I have kept the lines of communication open between me and them only in hopes they might one day repent of such things. Having chosen, instead, to hurt you, they have at long last lost their chance.”

“Major, no! I can’t be the thing that cuts you off from your family!” 

“Maxwell, these upright cobras slithered between us to lay their poison-yolked clutch of lies in the lining of your heart. They made you cry! They may use any means they can devise to torture  _ me  _ \- but they have known from the first that you were quite off limits.”

Klinger wrinkled his nose. “That snake stuff was kinda disgusting. Poetic disgusting, but still.” 

“ _ They  _ are hideous. I am surprised that all they look at does not wither. As for family - you and Honoria are all the family I desire.” 

“Charles, I just want you to have the best things in your life. I… I can handle it, that stuff I said.” 

“Being my  _ mistress _ , Maxwell?” His tone was arch. “Do you think so little of me, after so long? You are my  _ partner _ . My darling girl. My handsome Corporal.  _ My life _ . I want you for listening to the stories of my day, for walking on the beach, for laughing together and reading to you on rainy days. You would rob me of  _ that _ and condemn me to a loveless match in your place because it is what my wretched family thinks I deserve?” 

“They think… they think it’s the money. That I stay for that.”

“And you and I both know that the only material things you care for are the  _ literal  _ materials for your sewing creations - which you afforded just fine without me.” He kissed the tears from his lashes. “Can we dispense with this painful farce now and go home?” 

Klinger nuzzled into the strong, warm, long-fingered hands that framed his face. “Yeah. Sorry I let them get to me, Charles.”

“No apologies, love. Their words ruled me every day of my life until I looked up and saw something to break the spell.”

Klinger heard the strange, rare hum at the center of his words but did not understand his meaning. “What was it?” 

Charles took his arm and helped him stand, positioned him before him to stare into a dresser mirror. “You. I was free of them the moment I laid eyes on you in your yellow dress. You showed me a new kind of courage, my brave girl, and I had to win you, had to feel you in my arms.” He kissed his dark hair. “And when I did, you chased all of the shadows from me. So do please stop trying to escape them, yes?” 

“Okay. I love you, Charles.” 

“I know. Shall we go home?” 

*** 

In their house, Charles tucked his dear one into their shared bed. Klinger’s eyes laughed at him. “I’m not sick, y’know.”

“I just want to be able to find you when I return. Please stay put.”

“Where are you going?”

“To burn my bridges. I have spoken to Honoria and she wishes to join my long overdue rebellion.”

Klinger groaned. “Not over me!”

“Yes, but ‘over  _ me,’  _ also, I suspect. I, ah, I hadn’t told her all the things they did to ‘fix’ me… until now. She is, ah, unhappy about it, to say the least.”

“I can’t stop you?”

“No, beloved. But you may help me to celebrate my victory when I return if you wish.” 

Klinger shook his head, terribly fond of him despite his misgivings about this course. “I’ll find something fun with laces for you to vanquish.” 

“Good girl.”

Klinger moaned at that and Charles kissed him down onto the bed before going off to slay the dragons that had given him life… then done all they could to ruin it. 

When he returned, Klinger was dozing. “Major?” he asked sleepily. “You okay, baby?” 

“Yes, darling.” His eyes were wise with pain, but clear. He was calm. He was  _ free _ . “We have a bit less money coming to us than we might have had,”

“Good riddance.”

“But the amount of love remains unchanged.”

“Just ‘til tomorrow.”

Charles gave him a warning look. “Max, if you say anything more about wives or apartments or other such arrangements…”

Klinger held his hands up in surrender. “I love you a little bit more every morning I wake up here, Major baby. That’s all I was gonna say.”

“Ah, well. For my part, I often think that I  _ cannot  _ love you more… then you say something like that and prove me quite incorrect. I, ah, brought you something.” 

“You didn’t have to. You weren’t the one who hurt my feelings.” 

“I know, but you’ll like this. I borrowed a page from your book. Honey-vine? If you would?” 

She came in and placed something warm and butterscotch-colored in Klinger’s lap. 

“ _ You stole  _ **_the cat_ ** _!?!? _ ”

“So it, ah, would seem. What did you call it in Korea? ‘Creative acquisition?’” What he didn’t say was:  _ love, they tried to steal  _ **_you_ ** _. That would have ripped out and ruined my heart, entire.  _

Klinger nuzzled the fancy creature and it kissed him with its nose. “Major…”

“Max, they did not love or care for  _ me.  _ I think it perfectly reasonable to assume they cannot care for or bestow affection upon this cat, while you have love enough, thankfully, for us both.” 

And while Norman Rockwell might have declined to paint them, the four made a very lovely and happy (found, fought for, and treasured) family indeed. 

End! 


End file.
